{"id":917,"date":"2011-11-06T19:24:28","date_gmt":"2011-11-07T00:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=917"},"modified":"2012-11-22T23:45:13","modified_gmt":"2012-11-23T04:45:13","slug":"made-for-another-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2011\/11\/made-for-another-world.html","title":{"rendered":"Made for Another World?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While travelling this weekend, I finally got around to reading Freud\u2019s Last Session<\/a><\/em> \u2013 a play that imagines a dialogue between Sigmund Freud (shortly before his death) and C.S. Lewis (not long after his conversion). \u00a0The show played recently off-Broadway, but I still haven\u2019t seen it.<\/p>\n

I have to say, I wasn\u2019t that impressed by the script. \u00a0The arguments Lewis presents are a lot more complex and compelling in the books he\u2019s written (and I assume the same goes for Freud as well). \u00a0I did think Lewis came off better in the debate, but that\u2019s largely because the arguments Freud musters are more of the angry-at-God type, and I think I\u2019ve got a better one to offer.<\/p>\n

In the script, Play!Lewis expresses a though I\u2019ve seen elsewhere in Real!Lewis\u2019s writings:<\/p>\n

None of us are born with desires unless satisfaction for them exists\u2026 A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim, water exists to do it. \u00a0So if I find within myself a desire which no experience in the world can satisfy, the most likely explanation is that I was made for another world<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First, to give Lewis his due, I do experience some of the passionate desires for unworldly things that led him to become a Christian. \u00a0But I don\u2019t believe that Christianity sates them or that powerful desires necessitate a satisfaction.<\/p>\n

So let me cop to part of the reason I\u2019m taking ASL lessons. \u00a0A large part is that I like learning a new language to keep my mind sharp and that (as a total math\/topology geek) I\u2019m thrilled to learn one that\u2019s so visual spatial. \u00a0But a not insignificant proportion of my reasoning was \u201cmaybe this is the closest I can get to being a wizard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Let me explain. \u00a0Whether it\u2019s the difficult hand\u00a0positions\u00a0of Lev Grossman\u2019s castings in The Magicians<\/a><\/em> or the forged-in-muscle magic of Spellbound<\/a><\/em>, fantasy novels have taught me that doing magic is all about imbuing your words with meaning (possibly physically). \u00a0Diane Duane writes in her Young Wizards series<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Wizards love words. Most of them read a good deal, and indeed one strong sign of a potential wizard is the inability to get to sleep without reading something first. But their love for and fluency with words is what makes wizards a force to be reckoned with. Their ability to convince a piece of the world \u2013 a tree, say, or a stone \u2013 that it\u2019s not what it thinks it is, that it\u2019s something else, is the very heart of wizardry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So learning ASL felt like getting closer to wizardly language, where words don\u2019t just express ideas, they embody them. \u00a0My desire for language-magic is a pretty passionate one, and it\u2019s attraction isn\u2019t just wish-fullfilment. \u00a0When I read the paragraph above in So You Want to be a Wizard<\/a><\/em>, it felt true<\/em>, it felt like a glimpse of the hidden order under the world. \u00a0It felt exactly like a longed for desire finally finding it\u2019s object. \u00a0And clearly I\u2019m not the only one with this intuition, or it wouldn\u2019t pop up in so many novels.<\/p>\n

But, although I made a leap of faith and took the Wizard\u2019s Oath that night<\/a>, I haven\u2019t gotten any more adept at pulling whatever levers I imagine\u00a0underlie\u00a0reality. \u00a0I\u2019d like anyone who accepts Lewis\u2019s\u00a0assertions\u00a0as valid to explain why his Christ-seeking desires do logically require a source of\u00a0fulfillment\u00a0and my language-magic yearning does not. \u00a0And try not to do it by no-true-Scotsmanning my desires as not passionately felt enough.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

P.S: If you\u2019re looking for a play that deals with philosophy and religion at a high level without sacrificing plot, you should come to DC in February and see New Jerusalem: The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza<\/a><\/em> at Theatre J. I saw last summer\u2019s production and it was stellar. The revival is keeping the two leads: Spinoza and his rabbi.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While travelling this weekend, I finally got around to reading Freud\u2019s Last Session \u2013 a play that imagines a dialogue between Sigmund Freud (shortly before his death) and C.S. Lewis (not long after his conversion). \u00a0The show played recently off-Broadway, but I still haven\u2019t seen it. I have to say, I wasn\u2019t that impressed by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[42,41],"class_list":["post-917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apologetics","category-reviewsrecommendations","tag-cs-lewis","tag-sundays-good-book"],"yoast_head":"\nMade for Another World?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"While travelling this weekend, I finally got around to reading Freud's Last Session - a play that imagines a dialogue between Sigmund Freud (shortly\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2011\/11\/made-for-another-world.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Made for Another World?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"While travelling this weekend, I finally got around to reading Freud's Last Session - a play that imagines a dialogue between Sigmund Freud (shortly\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2011\/11\/made-for-another-world.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Unequally Yoked\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-11-07T00:24:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-11-23T04:45:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/files\/2011\/11\/Freud103-1024x688.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Leah Libresco\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Leah Libresco\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2011\/11\/made-for-another-world.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2011\/11\/made-for-another-world.html\",\"name\":\"Made for Another World?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-11-07T00:24:28+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-11-23T04:45:13+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/17ee17592b35b40040d5f5f7ea5ab464\"},\"description\":\"While travelling this weekend, I finally got around to reading Freud's Last Session - a play that imagines a dialogue between Sigmund Freud (shortly\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2011\/11\/made-for-another-world.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2011\/11\/made-for-another-world.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2011\/11\/made-for-another-world.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Made for Another World?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/\",\"name\":\"Unequally Yoked\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/17ee17592b35b40040d5f5f7ea5ab464\",\"name\":\"Leah Libresco\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/20e1e6a3a94c4e7928687804a41d888d?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/20e1e6a3a94c4e7928687804a41d888d?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"caption\":\"Leah Libresco\"},\"description\":\"Leah is the author of Arriving at Amen and Building the Benedict Option. 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